Trees
by Mantis 09
Summary: When I lie awake at night reflecting upon my life I always think of trees. Trees fill my memory with their majestic beauty. So why are they leaving? Oneshot, drabble on the life of Link. TPverse.


**This is just a simple oneshot that may or may not turn into some sort of grand series. But for now heres this.  
I own nothing except the story.**

Whenever my mind wanders it always comes back to trees. Strong, majestic, placid in the moonlight. I used to just stare at them as if they held some grand secret on… well what? The reasons of existence, in other words that large and foreboding question, 'what is the meaning of life'? Perhaps the reason why Mother Nature has poisoned itself with us humans? Maybe it just wants to tell me the reason for my existence? That would make a lot of sense. Or it could just be telling me the perfect recipe for pumpkin pie, everyone in Ordon loves mine so why not?

Whatever the reason is, no matter how grand or how small, trees will always enthrall me with their simple placid beauty.

* * *

You know I never knew my parents. They died from a pack of wolves when I was four. I can still remember how my mother tried to reach out for me before the wolves took her away. Her face distorted and ugly, blood matted in her pristine golden hair and bruises along her beautiful face. Her arm came so close to caressing me one final time but then the wolves dragged her back. She cawed and screamed but nobody came to help her, and the wolves devoured her. I screamed and I watched as her limbs were ripped off and devoured one by one until she was unrecognizable and drowning in her own blood.

The wolves never turned for me though. My reasoning for the longest time had been because I wasn't worth the effort, but now I know the truth of why. I am a wolf just like them and as my initiation they had scarred me with a traumatic experience and then left me to rot for three days in the woods, surrounded by gnarly trees.

* * *

I held the blade in trembling hands before the great man of evil, and it cut through him like a knife. The Master Sword plunged into the glowing white spot where thousands of years earlier he had been stabbed with a sword of light, this time he was stabbed with a sword imbued with twilight.

I felt so much in that pinnacle moment. Red-hot anger because of the supposed death of Midna, contempt because this nightmare was just about over, and a curious feeling of glee that I feel every time I slay a beast, almost as if the wolf inside me is taking pleasure in the kill like the wolves had had with my mother.

And then it was over. But a new journey was about to begin. In the setting sun the true Midna stood in the twilight of the day, her body in the foreground of the sky and the trees, her orange hair the true colour of twilight, her eyes auburn but to me golden. She asked of me, "What. Am I so beautiful you have no words left."

I kissed her then and later we made love under an overhang rock in the middle of the Gerudo desert, that cold and lifeless desert. She had to return home in the morning, return to her people. So we had to make it last. But she would be back, right?

Wrong. Her last words before she stepped through the portal and broke the connection were, "Link… I… See you later." We had kissed, we had made love in the moonlight, and yet she couldn't say I love you out loud. I want to hear her say that so much, I have to hear her say it, so I left Ordon.

* * *

I left Ilia a letter for she was my love before Midna. I had to tell her I was leaving, I owed it to her and yet it had been so hard to write.

_Ilia, I love you. I love your laugh, I love your ways, I love the way you talk and walk. I love how you grew with me after the village found me. I love how you played with me even though I was too afraid to even move. I love how you sometimes take Epona from me and then give me a little lecture, its just a little quirk that makes me love you more. I love how you swam with me in our little pond, how after you sat next to me dripping wet and naked. How we made love on the banks of that pond and how arousing it had been._

_I love you Ilia but sometimes our love can change like how a tree can be changed with the winds and the weather. I love someone else now but she is far away. But someday I'm going to find her, and then her and I will be together._

_I loved you Ilia but now I must move on down this path of life. I thank you for helping me grow through the years of pain and I will always remember you for that._

_Goodbye my sweet._

_

* * *

_It's strange how things can change in an instant. One minute you're at the top of the world enjoying the victory and conclusion of one long journey. The next you've thrust yourself into a second journey, one of a lost love and dare I say betrayal. Because that's what this journey is, the ultimate betrayal of Ilia's love. She practically raised me and now I'm throwing her aside. It was my duty to stay with her, love her, and someday marry her. But it's my destiny to be with Midna that I'm sure of.

So now I must travel and find a way to her, because I have to find her, have to hold her in my arms one last time, have to hear her say I love you.

* * *

Scenery change, no more trees, no more destiny sticks sprouting up through the ground rooted in my conciseness. Now all I see in my wandering mind is a desert, not trees. Sure I've left the desert long ago, and then the mountains, and then over that raging sea. And now I cross a plain where the only thing with roots is low laying grass that kills all who eats it.

And yet the desert remains. Flat, barren, scarce, lifeless, so hot and yet so cold, an eternal waste. I see no trees I see no life. Just an endless waste.

Even though I walk across the plains in my mind I still trek across the desert-the waste. Because that's what I've become. Not just a wolf, but a lone wolf forever gallivanting across the desert until he finds what he is searching for. But I have a feeling I will never find it.

* * *

This is the end, time for the lone wolf to die now. He's malnourished, he's alone, and he still hasn't found what he's been searching for.

He thinks of Midna one last time but that path only leads to the desert so instead he thinks of Ilia and the path opens before him. Suddenly trees fill his mind, the desert is filled with cleansing water and green foliage. And in the center of those trees lies a pond; on its bank are a man and a woman in their early twenties. They lie side by side naked and wet. They've just made love.

But the man he notices is not right, it looks like him but it's not. The man has short gray fur all over his body and growing from his back is a long gray tail. He is a wolf man. The hallucinater wants to scream but he cannot, his mouth is constricted, he wants to tell the man to stay and to never leave. But in direct response the man gets up and he leaves the borders of the hallucination. The hallucinater looks back down at the girl and sees that she is crying very violently. Minutes pass and then she takes out a dagger and it plunges into her heart.

This time the hallucinater is able to scream but nobody hears him, he's already dead. The lone wolf, that endless searcher has died.


End file.
